Afraid to Love
by Commander
Summary: Boober is afraid to seek out happiness for himself... but what if happiness seeks HIM out? One shot.


(AN: Whoa, check this out, I wrote a Fraggle Rock one-shot!

Firstly, I've put it in the Muppets Tonight category because there's another Fraggle fic here so I figure that it's close enough of a category… but if you think it should be moved somewhere else, please just let me know. Secondly, I've only just—and I mean just—started watching this show, so I've probably written Boober and Mokey a bit out of character. However, I wrote this awhile ago and I still like it when I reread it, so I think it's probably decent enough to publish. Perhaps. I guess you'll all let me know, huh? :)

Fraggle Rock and all related characters belong to the Jim Henson company, not me. Please don't sue me. You all know the drill.

Enjoy the Fraggley goodness!)

O.o.O

Mundane chores.

Whatever one's opinion was about them, everyone was usually of the agreement that they had to be done. It didn't matter if you thought they were the most boring activities in existence, or if it was something that you felt pretty neutral about, or if the mundane and routine helped keep you occupied. Helped keep your mind off how horrible things could get.

Boober Fraggle, obviously, fit into the third category.

Holding a dirty shirt, he plunged his arms into the soapy water, feeling comforted by the warmth. Contrary to popular belief (which was just fine to Boober), doing the laundry didn't necessarily make him happy. Nothing really did, actually. Well, at least, he wouldn't _let _anything make him happy.

He knew what would happen if he did. Everything that he cared about would be snatched away from him.

That was all there was to it. He was scared to be happy. None of his friends really knew it, and Boober wasn't about to tell them. They didn't need to know. All that they needed to know was that he'd do their laundry for them, and remind them about death and plague and all that. He was their comic relief. They all thought he was being ridiculous. But Boober knew, better than any of them, what catastrophes could befall anyone's life.

It wasn't like he found it easy to keep these thoughts, of course. Unfortunately, he _did _have a desire to be happy, even though every logical nerve in his body knew what would happen if he was. But his desires were getting stronger every day, nearly too strong for him to control. He wanted to be happy. He wanted to hear her sweet voice praise the beauty of the flowers, the sky, life. He wanted to see her smile just for him again. He wanted—

"Oh, Boober, I knew I'd find you here."

The shirt slipped out of Boober's hands—luckily it was underwater, so his shock wasn't quite so noticeable. "Oh—Hi Mokey," he managed to stammer, fishing around for the shirt he had dropped in a way that attempted to act like he hadn't dropped it at all.

Mokey took a deep breath. "Boober, would it be a terrible thing to ask of you if you'd wash my robe? I… I spilled some paint on it, and I'm not sure if it'll come out."

"Just recently?" asked Boober, trying to act like he cared more about Mokey's robe than Mokey herself. He had a bad feeling that he wasn't faking it very well.

Mokey smiled that smile of hers where Boober was convinced she was seeing straight through him. "Yes, just now. I thought I'd better bring it to you right away." She pulled up her robe and revealed a fresh spot of dark green paint. "Do you think you can get it out?"

"Well, I can try," admitted Boober. He pulled his hands out of the wash… and then awkwardly held them out. "Um…"

"Oh, of course." Mokey giggled to herself. "I guess you'd need my robe to try and get the spot out." She rolled her shoulders back, and her robe shimmered down off her body and around her ankles.

Boober remained frozen. Wow, how long had she practiced _that _move? Was she purposely looking as angelic as possible around him just to play with his mind?

"Here you go," said Mokey, handing Boober her robe.

Boober took it, saying nothing—and, in fact, trying his hardest to not look at Mokey at all. Gosh, it was silly of him. Clothing was entirely optional for Fraggles—many wore nothing at all, in fact. Still, he felt that, for some reason, he _shouldn't _look at Mokey unclothed… it would be as if he were intruding on her, on a part of her that she obviously didn't want others to see.

She stood over him, watching as he scrubbed at the spot of paint. "It doesn't look like it's going to come out…" she said softly, as if to herself.

"Just give me time, it'll come," said Boober distractedly.

"Oh, I hope it does. This is my favorite robe."

Boober smiled before he could stop himself. "All your robes look the same to me."

"Boober!" said Mokey, her eyelids rising slightly. "You of all people should know that there are subtle differences in each individual article of clothing! This robe—" She reached into the wash and held out the sleeve—"this robe has a slight tear in the left sleeve, just right here. It's the robe I wore the day I moved into the hole of my own, away from my parents."

"And that's a good thing?" asked Boober guardedly. "Do you not like them?"

"Oh, of course not, I love my parents!" cried Mokey. "But it was a big turning point in my life—the day I was out on my own… independent… ready to take care of myself."

Boober said nothing, instead simply scrubbing away at the robe, trying to forget that Mokey was there—as if he _could. _

"It was the start of a new era for me," said Mokey quietly. "In both good and bad ways."

Boober scrubbed harder. There was far more to Mokey than what met the eyes. People who knew her only by her artwork assumed that she was always happy, only focusing on the positive—that she was, in short, like your average Fraggle. But no, Mokey was an artist in the true sense of the word. True, she did _prefer _to focus on the positive, but as she had explained to Boober one day, "You can't have light without dark, and you can't have happy without sad. I try to show all of these in my painting. Without opposites, the world would be dull, wouldn't it?"

Most Fraggles didn't think like that. But Mokey did.

"I was excited to start living my life on my own," Mokey continued, resting her bare arm on Boober's wash bin, "but I was also worried… worried that I wouldn't be… happy."

Without thinking, Boober looked up. "Happy?" he asked.

Mokey nodded and smiled. Without her robe on, she looked almost frail, as if she were open and exposed, but that quiet inner strength of hers that shone through so clearly with her smile reminded Boober how wrong that assumption was. "Yes… I didn't want to be unhappy. Luckily I met you, and Gobo, and Wembley, and Red… and so I had lots of friends… with friends and art and writing, I was happy."

Boober noticed the slight, almost accidental emphasis on "was" and opened his mouth to ask why she had said "was" and not "is", but Mokey suddenly spoke again. "Boober? Does laundry make you happy?"

It was such a sudden question that Boober couldn't even stammer at first. "Uh… uh…" he finally said.

"What I mean is, does it make you happy, as in really and truly happy, as in there's nothing your heart would rather do in the entire world?" she asked, dreamily.

Lie. He had to lie.

"Well… not exactly _happy._ Content, maybe…" _I thought I told you to LIE, you idiot, _Boober mentally cursed himself.

"You spend so much time and energy on laundry, and…" Mokey's voice trailed off. "You ought to do things that make you happy," she finally said quietly. "What makes you happy, Boober?"

NOW he had to lie. He had to lie and tell her that nothing really made him happy; that he was just that morbid, depressing little Fraggle that everyone assumed he was.

"I… you see… do you remember when I went with you when you were painting a picture of that mushroom, and you were telling me all the names of the flowers and we laid in the grass and felt it tickle our feet?"

"Of course," said Mokey, again smiling gently.

"I was happy then," sighed Boober in a defeated tone. Why, oh _why _couldn't he lie to her?

"I thought so," said Mokey. To Boober's surprise she wasn't smiling; her voice was suddenly more serious, but still gentle, like always. "Boober… I only ask because… there was a time, before I met you, that I was unhappy too. Very unhappy."

Boober's stomach began to churn from the strangest mixture of nervousness, hopefulness, and sheer dread. Instead of saying anything, he looked down at his laundry, trying to focus all his attention on that.

"A lot of my childhood friends were finding… partners. You know… they were getting married. And I had no one. I felt left out… I wanted, more than anything, what they had. I wanted to love and be loved."

Boober scrubbed harder. _Don't look up, _he thought urgently to himself.

"But then I realized something. That wasn't what love was. Love isn't wishing that you had it. Love is something that you get, and then you want to _keep _it. I realized that I could be happy without having anyone. That I would only long for love when I actually _did _love."

_Don't look up._

"And so I've been happy… far happier than I ever was… my life was alright, until I realized…"

_**Don't look up.**_

"…oh, how do I put this… I don't… I don't know how to… Boober, you're always so depressed, but I love being around you… I love seeing you happy, and you make _me _happy… Boober…"

_**DON'T LOOK UP!**_

"…Boober, I love you!"

_Don't. Look. Up._

It was no use... Mokey's robe slipped from Boober's hands and into the soapy water. Boober remained frozen. He could hardly _breathe, _let alone look up. The only part of his body that seemed to be functioning was his heart, and that was beating about five times the normal rate, rattling his entire, dumbstruck body.

There had always been that secret, terrible little part of him, an idiotic romantic imagining how he and Mokey would declare their love for each other. It had never been a big stretch of the imagination to assume that Mokey might have feelings for him… but it was Mokey, so of course there was no stretch there. Boober could very easily see her telling the same thing to Gobo, or Wembley, or even Red, for that matter. Her caring of her friends was deep, long lasting, and… well, beautiful.

And as far as the other Fraggle in question was, whoever that might have been, there was again no question about what their reaction to Mokey's affection would have been. Everyone loved Mokey. There were no exceptions. Everyone who knew Mokey adored her. Boober had accepted his fate long ago. Someday, some Fraggle would admit his romantic love for her, they would get married and have lots of little Fraggles, and Boober would be thrown into a great, seething melancholy, having to watch the Fraggle he loved wrapped in another's arms. She would be happy, that other Fraggle would be happy, and Boober would continue in his depression. Everyone wins.

But he had never expected that Mokey, with all the Fraggles she had to choose from, would seek _him _out.

"Boober?" Mokey whispered, fearfully. "Boober, please say something…"

Boober gulped, hearing the sadness in her voice. Oh lordy, why did she have to tell him this? He was going to have to tell her now why he couldn't love her, why he _shouldn't _love her… he was going to have to hurt her.

In the long run, it would be for the best. Hurt her today, but save her from tomorrow.

"Mokey… I…" He looked up and saw her, her eyes so hopeful and pleading, and he nearly lost it right then. "…I can't… I mean, I just…"

"You don't love me, do you," she said softly.

"No! I mean—what I mean is—" Boober fumbled for words. "Mokey, _everyone _loves you!" he finally said, giving himself a mental pat on the back for finding a safe answer.

"But do you?" asked Mokey, insistent.

Boober hesitated again… still not knowing whether to tell her a lie or the truth.

"I… _yes," _he finally whispered, almost bitterly. "But Mokey—"

"Is there someone else?" Mokey asked. "Do you keep some secret wife in here that none of us know about?" She smiled, despite the situation.

"No, there's no one else—but Mokey—I can't let myself be happy!"

"Oh Boobie-kins," smiled Mokey, wrapping her arms around him. "That's silly. Everyone deserves to be happy."

"No, you don't understand," cried Boober, pulling away from her. "Every time I've ever been happy, it's been taken away from me. Everyone I've ever loved has been snatched from me, has met an untimely, tragic end! I won't let that happen to you, Mokey. I _won't. _So I _can't _love you. You need to find someone else who won't condemn you to an early, painful, and heartbreaking death!"

Mokey's smile disappeared. "What happened to them, Boober? To the ones you loved?"

"Do you remember when that big outbreak of the vleedal virus happened, a long time ago?"

"Yes, I do," nodded Mokey. "I was only a child, though."

"Me too. Younger than you, of course. Anyway…" Boober sighed, feeling the pain of his long-kept secret finally breaking through. But hey, he had revealed everything else about himself to Mokey; he might as well just go all out. Besides, this was the _only _way he could make her understand why he could never love her, as much as he wanted to. "My whole family got it, including me. We all got it really bad. I had two older brothers—my oldest brother died first, than my other brother. Then my dad—and then my mom—"

Mokey gasped. For the first time that evening, her eyes were filled with tears. "Oh… oh Boober!" she whispered in horror.

"I've lived on my own after that," said Boober, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "Always. I knew I couldn't rely on anyone else for happiness—I knew that happiness was something that I could never have. I slipped up once," he said quietly. "I knew this Fraggle, when I was a little older—she was a lot like you," Boober admitted. "I started… I really, really liked her. She was my best friend. But then one day… one day when she went out to the Gorg's garden—she liked it up there, she thought it was the most beautiful place on earth, just like you—and that Junior Gorg… _stepped on her."_

Mokey's hands flew to her mouth.

"I knew, right then, that if I ever loved someone again, they'd die. Just like that." Boober gulped; he too was beginning to cry. Which happened quite a bit, actually. But of course no one knew. He kept his hair over his eyes for a reason. "So, Mokey, you see now why I can't love you… if anything ever happened to you… I don't know what I'd do," he finally said.

Mokey blinked her tears out of her eyes. "Oh Boober… you're such a sweetheart…" She leaned against him, wrapped her arms around him again, and kissed the side of his mouth comfortingly. "You poor little thing… you need love, you know it."

_Yes, YES, I need it and I want it! _Boober nearly cried out. "No, I can't! I can't let terrible things happen again! I can't be responsible for your death, Mokey!"

"And you can't deny yourself the right to love!" said Mokey. "Everyone loves, Boober. You can't stop yourself from loving."

"But if I let myself love you, then—"

"You think I'm going to die a young, horrible death, don't you?" Mokey interrupted.

"Yes! Finally you understand!"

"Boober." Mokey placed a hand over his mouth, silencing him. "I can't promise you that I _won't _die a young, horrible death. But I can tell you this; if I do, it won't be because you loved me. Love doesn't _kill _people, Boober. Love makes people _live."_

"I can't let this happen to you, Mokey," Boober insisted.

Mokey smiled. "I'll take my chances."

Boober stared. "You'll _what?"_

"I'll take my chances," Mokey repeated. "I want to be with you. Even if that means risking death."

Boober's jaw dropped. "Really?" he finally squeaked out.

"Really."

Had Boober been thinking clearly, he would have argued with her some more, but all his mind could wrap around was what she was clearly willing to do for HIM. She knew what she was doing, she knew what the consequences might be (at least, he thought she knew…) and she still wanted HIM.

"Oh, Mokey!" he said, finally letting himself take her in his arms and kiss her.

"See?" said Mokey, with a laugh of happiness. "We can both be happy! Everyone wins!"

Boober's face fell a bit. "I'll only win if my happiness isn't fleeting."

"We won't always be happy, Boober. Happiness can't exist without sadness. But we'll get through it together. I know we will." Mokey kissed the side of Boober's mouth again. "Now, how about my robe?"

"Oh, right!" cried Boober, rushing back to his laundry.

Doing the laundry made him feel content…

…but being with Mokey made him happy. Very happy indeed.


End file.
